Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Three Ring Circus....

Don't you love this image? It has been shot by one of our most talented photographers, Shantanu Das. His exhibition titled Borders - Within/Without, starts on the 5th. This image is called Sailing in the clouds! I love it!

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This appeared in The Asian Age....

Three Ring Circus

Surely, it can’t get any funnier! It’s a
good thing Indians have a sense of humour or else by now we’d have gone through
several bloody revolutions! We laugh at ourselves, we laugh at our leaders, we
laugh at our fate. We laugh for no reason. This amazing ability to keep
laughing saves us from going insane. But it also saves the big, fat butts of
our leaders. This is when the joke ceases to be funny. We are at such a moment
right now. The international community must be having the last laugh as we
fumble and mumble our way through a script that would do Charlie Chaplin proud.
We have messed up big time on virtually everything. Starting with the ludicrous
Italian Job. Though, one also suspects there is more to this story than meets
the eye. What appears to be a comedy of errors may well turn out to be a very
deviously constructed script! Perhaps, the idea was to make it look like a
series of goof ups. But the possibility that this approach was a part of a
super smart strategy cannot be ruled out. Surprise! Surprise! The main players ,
those dishy Italian Marines, are back in India after they were assured their
necks will be spared. Incredulous India watchers have monitored the pantomime
over the past three weeks, and waited for a resolution to what could have
turned into an unprecedented International diplomatic crisis. It is entirely
possible that taking advantage of the general chaos prevailing in the country
right now, some really sharp and astute players may have come up with the
entire charade involving those naughty Marines and their Ambassador. Check out the
timing: There is a brand new Pope at the
Vatican. All eyes are on Rome and all things Italian. This includes our own
very special and very personal connection to Italy. Who is to say what
political arrangements were made to enable the Marines to first slip out of
India and then to slip back in so easily? Who can tell whether the drama around
the Ambassador was not being stage
managed at the highest level? Tricking and deceiving a trusting, gullible
public comes easily to both - Italians
and Indians. In that sense, we have much in common. Corruption on a mega scale
at every level, included. Like they say, there is a code of honour that binds
the Mafia. Perhaps we too have forged a similar understanding with the Italian
government… after all, there is a long and complicated history of other
notorious Italians ( Ottavio Quattorocci) fleeing India after a scandal.And we
are still waiting for OQ to do the honourable thing by coming back to India to
face a trial. Ha! Joke!

Where have we not messed up? The brand new
Chinese honcho ( President Xi Jinping) has shown us our place ( bottom of the
heap) in unambiguous terms. Snub after snub has demonstrated where we stand in
his scheme of things. We are virtually gheraoed by the Chinese now. And we have
still not woken up. Our neighbours on every front hate us. The Chinese in turn,
love our neighbours and declare their love publicly, just in case we have not
noticed the cosy relationships. Even our old ally, Bhutan, is disillusioned and
angry. The Sri Lanka problem is deteriorating by the micro-second. Jayalalitha
has upped the stakes and is now asking for an economic embargo, no less.While
IPL fans are distraught that Sri Lankan players will skip the Chennai match,
Jayalalitha is crowing. Pakistan remains as hostile as ever. Bangladesh is
reliving the trauma of the old war they blame India for. We have systematically
alienated the Maldivians. Let’s see…. who does that leave? The Generals in
Myanmar are flirting with their Chinese suitors (Err…who isn’t?), and whatever
little good will we may still have with those we call ‘friends’ is getting
rapidly eroded. Despite these bummers, we carry on muddling our way through
assorted crises in a manner so idiotic, It is stupefying, if not downright
alarming!

But, we are not so easily shamed or
daunted! We carry on with our Keystone Cops style of functioning. Our short
sightedness prevents us from seeing the writing on the wall. And that writing
does not go beyond Elections 2014. We are obsessed by Narendra Modi – will he
make it as P.M. or won’t he? If not NaMo , then who? Note: nobody says ‘Rahul
Gandhi’ on auto pilot any more. Nitish Kumar is
saying ( indirectly, of course) , “Why not me?” Mulayam Singh is not
saying a thing! He’s too smart. He’s waiting. For the others to get exhausted.
The rest don’t really count. Till such time as the heat gets to us and we also
collapse… all we can do is laugh! But hey, for the first time in decades, we
finally got one thing (almost) right – the National Film Awards ( let me
qualify: this year was a small improvement on the lop sidedness of several
previous years) . What does that prove?
If the intentions are honest , merit does get its due recognition. Here’s an
idea, Sirji : Why not induct the jury members of those movie awards into the government and get them to fix the mess? Perhaps if that
happens, we’ll get to witness an entirely new star cast at the helm of affairs.
And the underdog will finally get a come uppance. Please note: the underdog
here does not refer to Sanjay Dutt! Let’s hope all these troubling issues will
get sorted out quickly. Or else, ‘Maa ki Kasam’, we’ll have to take serious action. Don’t laugh!

6 comments:

This post is surely a summing up of the miserable state of affairs we are embroiled in as a country.Nobody seems to think of the nation but only vote banks matter for our politicians.We voters have shunned our responsibilities far too long.Pl. brethren forget about caste, creed and religion and elect the deserving. There is no dearth of men of caliber in our midst.

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